


Project Icarus: Because sometimes you have to fall before you can fly

by levele3



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Relationship, The Fox and the Hound (1981) References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26535493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levele3/pseuds/levele3
Summary: A brief history of the subject known as 'Project Icarus' aka Dirk Gently, up to and including the meeting of one Todd Brotzman.“This isn’t how this works,” thought the boy mournfully, “this isn’t how any of this works.”
Relationships: Todd Brotzman & Dirk Gently
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Project Icarus: Because sometimes you have to fall before you can fly

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this is me dipping my baby toe into this fandom. I had my friend who got my to finally watch this show, read this fic for me and it got her approval so I thought I'd share it with the rest of you!   
> Please let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy!

_“This isn’t how this works_ ,” thought the boy mournfully, “ _this isn’t how any of this works_.”

The boy who was born Svlad Cjelli, and would one day be Dirk Gently, but wasn’t yet, shook his head as he failed yet another puzzle solving test that had been placed before him. 

“Hey, Icarus, what happened in there today?” Riggins asked with faux parental concern.

“I’ve told you before,” the boy known currently as ‘Project Icarus’ whined, “it’s just not how it works.”

Svlad Cjelli had been born to Eastern European immigrants who had moved to England looking to make a fresh start and a better life for their little boy. They had paid for him to go to the best schools and therefore Svlad spoke with a rather posh British accent. For the first eleven or so years his life had been perfect. Or if not perfect at least not awful. But Svlad was special. Not because he wanted to be. Svlad was never going to a normal little boy, or even a mildly-well adjusted adult, because he had been born with a subconscious understanding of the interconnectedness of all things. In short, he was holistic. 

A year ago, when he had still been Svlad, and lived with his loving if somewhat distracted parents the boy had been climbing a tree. This was not unusual. Svlad had climbed lots of trees. This was because for some reason all the cats that belonged to his grandmotherly type neighbours kept disappearing. Svlad was young and agile so the women would ask him to find their cats and offer him a shilling or two for his trouble if he came back with them. Svlad found the cats without any trouble. Finding the cats was the easy part. Nine-out-of-ten times the cats were up the large tree that occupied most of the front garden of their flat complex. The trouble was by the time Svlad climbed up the tree to where the cats were, the cats being of a fickle and changeable nature would leave their branches and head back to their owners of their own accord. This left Svlad A) unpaid and B) stuck in a tree. 

It was after the fourth or so time this happened that Svlad’s parents were approached by someone from the CIA, one Mr. Priest and then subsequently a large black SUV’s came and took him away. They took a plane to the states and once there Svlad was taken to the Blackwing containment facility. He met Scott Riggins and was subjected to daily testing. That was when life became downright awful.

***

One day, when the boy who would one day be Dirk Gently was fourteen, he was disturbed from his (useless) tests by loud shouting in the hallway. 

“I didn’t do it, I swear I didn’t do it,” came the terrified cry.

Icarus looked out to see a girl, about his age, with unruly hair, and tear streaks streaming down her dirty cheeks being pulled along by Mr. Priest and two of his men. The girl looked haunted and fearful. _What didn’t she do?_ He wondered. Later he asked Riggins about her.

“That’s Marzanna,” Riggins explained.

“What didn’t she do?” he asked.

Riggins gave the boy a sad look, one that said he truly hated to shatter this young person’s innocents. 

“That’s the problem, Icarus, she did. She’s holistic, like you,” Riggins said gently, “only instead of being able to find things, she kills people.”

Icarus inhaled sharply. He didn’t like death.

“She may not have pulled the trigger,” Riggins continued, “but she might as well have. People just have a tendency to die around her, bad people of course,” Riggins added as if that made it better.

“Who did she, uhh, who died?” Icarus asked.

Riggins seemed to consider the weight of the answer some time before finally caving and admitting, “her father, well step-father.”

“And was he a bad man?” Icarus asked.

Again Riggins hesitated before confirming that yes, “he was the worst sort of man.” 

Riggins didn’t elaborate and Icarus didn’t ask for more details. He never saw or heard from or about Project Marzanna while still at Blackwing. 

***

When the boy who would one day be Dirk Gently was sixteen, he met a girl about his age. Her name was Mona. She was soft-spoken and shy. She had lovely long dark hair that curtained her pale face, and big dark eyes. Eyes that seemed to know too much. 

“Hi, I’m Mona,” she said, biting her lip and swaying side-to-side. 

“Mona Wilder,because I’m like a wild card, I can be anything,” she whispered like she was sharing a secret. 

“Hello Mona, I’m Icarus.” Icarus suck out his hand awkwardly for the new girl to shake.

She tilted her head to a nearly impossible angle but didn’t reach for his hand. Eventually Icarus retracted it while Mona continued to survey him. He felt open and vulnerable under her gaze. Eventually he began to shift from foot-to-foot. He envied Mona her name. It had been years since anyone had called him Svlad. The name no longer felt like it belonged to him. If he ever got out of Blackwing he would need a new name.

“No you aren’t,” Mona said at last in her soft voice.

“Pardon?” Icarus asked, his head tilted curiously.

“That’s not your name,” Mona asserted more firmly, “you are…” she paused to consider him more closely.

“Gentle,” she said at last.

An unseen bolt of energy felt like it slammed into Icarus’ chest. Yes he was. Gentle. That sounded right, or close to right.

Mona began to skip about the bright white room singing, “ _Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream_ …”

 _I am but a leaf on the stream of creation,_ he thought, and with that thought Project Icarus was one step closer to becoming Dirk Gently. Icarus sang along with Mona until Riggins came to take them back to their own rooms. It had been the best day he had had in a long time. He asked to watch a movie.

There was only ever one movie Icarus wanted to watch. His favourite movie from when he’d been a little boy. It was a movie about the most unlikely of friendships that between a fox and a hound. 

It didn’t matter that Icarus knew the whole movie line for line, or that he still cried when the widow took Todd away to the forest.

“You’re my very best friend,” he echoed along with Todd, wondering what it would be like to actually have a best friend, “and you’re mine too, Todd.” One day he hoped to find out.

***

Icarus was twenty years old when the funding was pulled on Project Blackwing and the whole operation was shut down. Icarus shared a tearful good-bye with Project Moloch expecting to never see the old man again, and a brief hug with Project Lamia aka Mona Wilder. 

For sixteen years Dirk Gently, the man who was once Svlad Cjelli, and once Project Icarus was a free man. He was out and in touch with the world just as he was always meant to be. Things moved along at a rather sedate pace until Dirk took the Patrick Spring case. Being hired to solve a murder by the victim is a first for Dirk but not the strangest case he’s taken so far. And then he meets Todd.

Running around, solving the case with Todd, and Farah, for the first time Dirk knows why Riggins called him Icarus; because he feels like he is flying! He is soaring higher than ever before with an asista-friend by his side. Todd is- will be- his best friend, his future self said so, and it feels so right, the universe is aligning his way. They solve the case and Dirk is still chasing that high, until Friedkin. 

Bloody Friedkin ruined everything.

“This isn’t how this works,” Dirk moaned in complaint, “this isn’t how any of this works.” 

Just like Riggins before him, Dirks’ pleas fell on deaf ears. It took awhile but Riggins eventually came around and understood, it seemed like Friedkin never would. After being free for so long Dirk felt like a bird who had its wings clipped.

He tossed and turned at night in his too sterile room, dreaming of Todd and Farah coming to rescue him. Gods, how lonely, desperate, pathetic, did he have to be. They weren’t coming for him. He had been nothing but a nuisance to them. In the end it’s Mona who sets him free again. Dear, sweet Mona. And she sends him right to where he belongs, right to Todd and Farah who have managed to find a case without him. The reunion is cut short as they push to solve the newest mystery and Dirk deals with the guilt of believing he caused Todd to come down with Pararibulitis for real. 

It takes some time but Dirk eventually finds his stride, finds that Todd really is the wind beneath his wings, and the case gets solved. It’s nice to see Moloch again as he was meant to be.

They get settled in a little storefront of their own.

“You really are my best friend, Dirk,” Todd said one night as the two sat in the closed office, sharing a hot and fresh delivered pizza.

Without thinking, completely on reflex, Dirk sighed and in a soft wistful voice replied, “and you’re mine, too, Todd.”

For a moment the two shared a sappy smile, then Todd scrunched his face in confusion, “did you, did you just quote _The Fox and The Hound_?”

“No,” Dirk lied, his face blushing a bright red all the way up to his ears.

“Oh my god you did!” Todd accused, pointing jovially at Dirk before breaking out into a laughing fit. 

Dirk continued to look sheepish but soon followed suit, laugh along with Todd. He was free again and with Todd by his side Dirk wasn’t afraid to fly too close to the sun.


End file.
